Northern Light Theatre has landed on “obsessions and confessions” to define the three plays being presented (two as world premieres) in the upcoming season, which kicks off this fall.

“I normally come across one play that I love, and we program it, and then I find a second play and I look for the link, and then I go looking for another play with that link,” says artistic director Trevor Schmidt of his programming process.

Then he jokes: “It’s as close as I get to math.”

Schmidt programmed the 2019/20 season specifically to examine things that possess, distress, consume and amuse us, starting in October with Baroness Bianka’s Bloodsongs, by Joanna Weinberg.

The show is about a woman obsessed with blood. As a child, she wants to be blood sisters with the other little girls. She picks a career as a nurse for obvious reasons, but her obsession starts to get in the way of relationships because she wants to scratch her partners during sex, and they don’t like that.

Starring Kristin Johnson (who made her Northern Light debut in this season’s Origin of the Species), the show is described as a cabaret, with Johnson learning to play the accordion to perform the role of Baroness Bianka.

Everybody Loves Robbie

Up next in January, 2020, is a new work by local playwright Ellen Chorley, who is also the director of Nextfest, a celebration of youth creators and producers. It’s called Everybody Loves Robbie and explores what happens to the relationship between a teenage girl and her boyfriend when he wonders if he might be gay.

The work began its life in 2014 as a 15-minute play with three characters in Loud and Queer, an Edmonton queer arts cabaret. Schmidt directed it back then, too, “and it was really funny,” he says.

He asked Chorley if she could expand the work, but eliminate one character, and she happily obliged. Sterling award-winning Jayce McKenzie stars as the girlfriend, and Richard Lee plays the struggling young man.

“It’s a love letter to musical theatre and high school drama clubs,” says Schmidt, who has been at the helm of his small but fiery company for nearly 18 years. “It’s very, very funny but so loving. It’s a real snap shot of being a theatre teen.”

Ellen Chorley’s new play Everybody Loves Robbie is part of the Northern Light season in 2019/20. Photo suppliedsupplied /
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Confessions of a reluctant Caregiver

The season winds up in April of 2020 with a play sure to resonate deeply with large portions of the audience. It’s called Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver. Based on the real-life experiences of the playwright, Merri Biechler, the show has never been given a professional debut before. Rather, for years, it has been used as a teaching tool for doctors-in-training.

Biechler took care of both of her parents when they were dying of cancer.

“I read it 10 years ago and I was just about to turn 40 and it didn’t have much of an impact on me personally at the time. My life wasn’t in that place,” says Schmidt.

But now, his parents are aging and he understands the “guilt that comes with trying to balance caring for them, and managing a career and emotional life of your own.”

“It’s a beautiful play and it’s funny, but it’s a real tear jerker,” says Schmidt.

Northern Light concerns itself largely with women’s stories, and women’s roles in society. Schmidt hopes the plays in his obsessions and confessions season will help audiences make sense of the world around them.

“Our shows are usually so different in terms of style and content, but to have an overarching theme for the season provides a continuous through-line for our audience and subscribers,” he says.